nch right back to the donjon
cell in the rear, but with a $5 bill I secured a stay of
proceedings.

My forehead was damp with perspiration so I took off my hat and
laid it on the bench in the little court room where Bunch sat
moodily and with bowed head.

Then I coaxed the rural Vidocq over in the corner and gave him a
game of talk that I thought would warm his heart, but he listened
in dumbness and couldn't see "no sense in believing the maleyfactor
was anythin' more'n a derned cuss, nohow!"

"I have every reason to believe that we have made a mistake," I
said to Harmony in a hoarse whisper. "From an envelope dropped by
this party in my house I am lead to believe that he's a respectable
gentleman who entered my premises quite by mistake."

The chin whiskers owned and engineered by Diggs bobbed up and down
as he chewed a reflective cud, but he couldn't see the matter in my
light at all.

I had used all kinds of arguments and was just about to give up in
despair when a voice in the doorway caused us both to turn.

There stood Bunch Jefferson, the real fellow, looking as fresh as a
daisy.

"What's the trouble, John?" he asked, smiling benignly on Diggs.

While I was talking to the representative of the law, Mr. Slick saw
his opportunity and grabbed it by the hind leg. He had quietly
reached the door, and once outside the sledding was excellent.

Bunch had his business suit on under the burglar make-up. It
didn't take him two minutes to work the shine darbies over his
hands. He then peeled off the ulster and the tuppeny trousers,
and throwing these and the Svengalis over the fence, he was home
again from the Bad Lands.

The transformation scene was made complete by the fact that Bunch
was now wearing my hat.

In answer to Bunch's question, the redoubtable Diggs smiled
indulgently and said with pride-choked tones, "A maleyfactor, sir,
caught in the meshes of the law and hauled before this here trybune
of Justice by these hands!"

The eagle eye of Diggs was now triumphantly sighted along the arm
and over the bony hand to where the criminal was supposed to be,
but when the gaze finally rested on an empty bench the expression
of pained surprise on the old man-hunter's map was calculated to
make a hen cackle.

Diggs rushed over to the bench, turned it upside down, looked
behind the chairs, and then, emitting a roar that rattled the
rafters, he hustled back to see if by any chance the prisoner had
locked